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Bio
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Mercan Dede's Road Until Now
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Pioneering the bridge between Turkish Sufism and contemporary Western electronic music, Mercan Dede, “a dervish for the modern world,” came forward at the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music 2003 as the only artist nominated in two categories: Club Global and Middle East / North Africa. In 2005, he was nominated in still a third category, “Audience Award.”
RECENT US SUCCESSES
A rising star in Turkey, Europe and Canada, Mercan Dede’s US debut got a headstart at the first globalFEST in January 2004, New York City’s groundbreaking world music marathon hosting 16 different bands from 5 continents.
Combining his 1st two albums on Doublemoon (“Seyahatname”, “Nar”) “Sufi Traveler” was the first Mercan Dede widely distributed release in USA. The double album followed a North American tour in the summer 2004 including the 27th annual Vancouver Folk Festival (Canada), Stern Grove Festival (San Francisco), Grand Performances (Los Angeles), Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre, and Celebrate Brooklyn with an audience over 20.000 spectators in total.
Reaching the North American music lovers at last, Mercan Dede was featured on the cover of Global Rhythm Magazine in September 2004.
NEW ALBUM SU
Entering the World Music Charts in Europe and already released in Germany, Japan and Switzerland, Mercan Dede’s fifth studio album “Su” (meaning ‘Water’) is an invitation to a mesmerizing journey through Eastern sounds, where rhythms from Iran, India, Mediterranean and the Balkans flow together over a platform of contemporary electronic music. The artist collaborates with great local and international musicians in this album including Susheela Raman, Dhafer Youssef, Sheema Mukherjee (Transglobal Underground) and Hugh Marsh. Ceza, the young Turkish urban poet and rapper and the renowned Turkish folk vocalist Sabahat Akkiraz contributed their extraordinary vocals to Su.
A GLOBAL PROJECT FOR TURKEY
Mercan Dede was commissioned by the Turkish Ministry of Culture as the music director of the Guldestan project to represent Turkish culture and arts all around the globe.
PINA BAUCH’S ISTANBUL PROJECT
Some music of the recent work “Istanbul” of Pina Bausch, the world famous German choreographer, was composed by Mercan Dede.
WORLD FESTIVALS
His tour in 2003 included Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland), Arezzo Wave (Italy), Skopje Festival (Macedonia), Moers Festival (Germany), World Roots Festival (The Netherlands), Jaen-Etnosur (Spain), Rhythm Sticks Festival (UK) and many others.
COLLABORATIONS WITH INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS IN 2003-2004
Mercan Dede performed at Babylon, Istanbul with Transglobal Underground and Mich Gerber.
ALBUMS
Su ( Doublemoon 2004 ), Nar ( Doublemoon 2002 ), Seyahatname ( Doublemoon 2001 ),
Journey of Dervish ( Golden Horn 1999 ), Sufi Dreams ( Golden Horn 1998 ) |
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